REAL-WORLD INSIGHTS

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Over the last 40 years I have observed more than 5,000 hours of negotiation in over 30 countries and that has taught me the about the good negotiating behaviour that causes negotiations to succeed. For the purpose of this blog I shall limit myself to the top five and see how many of these might be present in the UK’s attempt to extricate itself from its 43-year relationship with the European Union...

Recently, I found myself in Cork in Ireland. Beautiful place and well worth a visit if you have never been. Its weather (we don’t have a climate in these parts; we just have the weather. Indeed, we spend a lot of time talking about the weather and if we didn’t have it to talk about, then this would a quiet place, let me assure you!) is balmy; never too hot and never too cold. For a man from northern climes it is well-nigh perfect; this does not mean to say though that, from time to time, it does not get hot, because believe me, it does and I happened upon one of the weeks in the year when it was hot, hot, hot...

I want you to imagine that you have been preparing for a negotiation and you have got to the point were you have to declare your financial proposal to paper. The bit that is going to be critical, maybe even the most important (maybe), is the price.
We could drift tangentially off point here and talk about things that may be much more important than price, like availability, quality, terms, etc., etc., we won’t. But you should...

I have just returned from holiday and one of the joys of a holiday is having lots of time to read. This holiday, one of the books I read was ‘A Street Cat named Bob’. It’s an uplifting and sometimes challenging book about a recovering drug addict – James Bowen, the author, and his cat, Bob whom he finds in the lobby of his building and whom he helps to recover from neglect and befriends. Having Bob gives James a reason for overcoming his heroin habit and he manages to get a job selling the ‘Big Issue’ in London – he had previously been a busker...

There are interminable lists of top negotiating dos and don’ts available on the internet, in books, and on training courses. They mainly contain pieces of sensible, if obvious advice about how negotiators should conduct themselves. You may have read some of these lists, and you may even have been moved to try some of the tips. You certainly don’t need to see another one...

I want you to try a little experiment.
Think of a simple tune. Something like Happy Birthday to You. (The most performed song in the English language, incidently).
Now find a colleague, friend or partner and tap out the song for them without telling them the name of the song.
Do it once. Then do it again. And now once more for luck....

After being the centre of attention for several months late last year, Greece has been mostly out of the international news. Indeed, some commentators have suggested that the economy might be showing signs of turning the corner; not exactly light at the end of the tunnel, but at least the tunnel has now come into view...

Genesis Chapter 18 might be an unusual source to derive some interesting negotiating techniques, but as they say in showbiz ‘the old ones are the best’.
Chapter 18 tells the story of the downfall of Sodom and Gomorrah, on the shore of the Dead Sea, which were centres of evil. The Almighty decides to liquidate the twin towns, and tells Abraham of his intentions...

Anjana – a sales leader with an IT firm – is busy preparing for negotiations with a large bank on renewing her firm’s contract with them. Given it is a decent sized deal, Anjana has been preparing for these negotiations over the last several days by interlocking with the account delivery teams, getting buy-ins from the senior leadership & CFO on commercials, getting a handle on the likely strategies from the competition etc. It is no surprise, given the rigour of her preparation, that Anjana was feeling confident about her meeting with the Client CIO.